How a Lindo Wing Consultant Obstetrician speeds up access to private patient data
The Lindo Wing at St Mary’s Hospital has been delivering world-class, private patient maternity care since 1937. Linked to St Mary’s Hospital and part of Imperial College Healthcare, the Unit provides women with world-class obstetric consultants who deliver a range of anti-natal, natal and post-natal care.
The challenge
Accessing patient notes quickly and storing them securely is a key requirement for all private practice consultants. In the case of maternity care, typically, obstetricians need to review a patient’s past notes – often with short notice. Having quick, easy and safe access to medical data from anywhere is essential and could even be vital in some circumstances.
Private medical practitioners can amass thousands of files over their careers and need certainty they can speedily access these files, as patients often have a significant time lag between previous consultations. For obstetricians operating in private practice, whilst the hospital keeps specific birth records, the clinicians keep their private patients’ data, with a requirement to keep records for 25 years.
In the case of one such Clinician, with over 3,000 records dating back many years, fast and secure access to information whenever and wherever he needed it, was the challenge.
The solution
Crown Records Management was asked by the Consultant Obstetrician to provide a fast, secure and simple storage and retrieval system to enable old records to be accessible as well as provide a process for ongoing medical files.
Crown’s Digital Services team initiated a secure scanning programme for all historical files. Metadata was agreed on with records indexed and fully searchable not only by the patient name and number but the content within each file using OCR technology so they could be easily retrieved. New records are collected on a regular basis by the Crown team, digitised and made accessible to the Consultant and his PA.
The scanned medical files are hosted on Crown’s EDRMS (Electronic Document and Records Management System) which the Consultant and his PA can view within seconds – either from a laptop or mobile.
The results
- From initial discussions to the Hospital Consultant being able to access initial files took 2 days with all historic medical records available online in less than 4 weeks.
- All historic records dating back many years are now stored in one secure location.
- Improved efficiency for the Clinician who’s able to download files and review notes on the go.
- Patient peace of mind as all their medical history is now in one place, as well as providing improved patient care as files are accessible in seconds – especially important in cases of emergency.
- More economical and secure storage of sensitive data, no ongoing requirement for physical files.
“I was impressed with the speed and accuracy with which the project progressed. Within weeks the team had scanned 20 years of medical records and I now have almost instant access to patient files with fast and simple search.
Knowing this sensitive medical data is secure in Crown’s facility gives reassurance to my team and my patients. It also means we’ve created more space and no longer have to store physical records on site.
I can now access the data from anywhere which makes my valuable time much more efficient”.
K.M, Consultant Obsetrictian, The Lindo Wing, Imperial College Healthcare
